


Little Trust

by Gemi



Series: Little Things [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Siblings, Drabble, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemi/pseuds/Gemi
Summary: Dream has a brother.He tries not to.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Little Things [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201610
Comments: 11
Kudos: 168





	Little Trust

Ranboo is all big eyes and gangly limbs and something within Dream _burns_ when he spots him, furious and bitter and something warmer which he ignores. Ranboo is awkwardly hunched, as if trying to hide, but the way he glances towards Dream is proof enough of what he already knows. He clenches his fists and shoves them into the pockets of his hoodie, hides how harshly his nails dig into skin. 

Dream slips away from the others and trusts Ranboo to follow. 

They were not talking of important things, anyway. Dream had simply visited to see how things were going. To see how Tubbo was handling things, to look for anything Dream might have to _adjust_. It’s easier to do that now, when Tommy has been exiled. Even if Tommy has somehow managed to snatch Technoblade, it’s easier. Made more so now when Tubbo knows where Tommy’s loyalty lies. Dream had only made sure it took, the bitter truth that is Tommy picking Technoblade over his best friend. 

Betrayal is good when it happens to others. 

Dream walks away from L’manburg and does not take the Prime Path, too littered with holes from when Technoblade and Tommy released a wither of all things. He reaches the Community House. Lingers there and watches bamboo move in the breeze, rustling and too tall. Much like the shape that slinks up beside him after a too long moment of waiting. 

“Hello,” Ranboo mumbles.

“ _How_ did you get out of it this time?” he asks instead of replying. He doesn’t turn; knows that all he will see is big eyes turned sad, and Dream does not need that right now. “I thought it would stick.”

“W-Well. I’m, I work hard,” Ranboo awkwardly jokes. Clears his throat. “I want to help. It’s, it’s hard to do that when you do… _that_.”

“You would be more helpful if you stopped _undoing_ _it_ ,” he hisses and whirls on him.

Ranboo backs up; he may tower over Dream, but that doesn’t change the fundamental truth of who is the oldest of them. For better or worse. Oldest is meant to protect the youngest, they were told. A lesson that Ranboo took to heart because Dream sees no fear in Ranboo’s eyes. He bites back the anger at that, knows any words that he lets out will be illogical and more hurtful than it’s worth. 

“I want to _help_ , Dream,” his little brother stubbornly insists, voice wavering but honest. “Please.”

“You can’t. I told you why I’m doing this, why you should stop undoing my work. I can’t have my little brother mess anything up.”

“I can be useful.”

“You _can’t_.”

“Let me prove it,” Ranboo begs, claws catching on claws as he fidgets before him, “I can help, I can do things. You- you shouldn’t be alone.” 

Ranboo looks more like their mom than he does. It’s a bit funny, when he thinks about it. Ranboo who is so very obviously enderman, but still has their mom’s nose, the same kind of floppy hair, just shorter. The same kind of hands. It’s the most obvious when Dream looks at the pale side; they both have green eyes, the same shape to them. The one thing they share, the one thing that people could _possibly_ link them together with if they ever thought about it hard enough. If Dream ever let them see past the mask. 

His brother smiles at him and that- that, of all things, is what reminds him the most of what used to be. A house filled with warmth and laughter, of long days spent running in the woods, some clumsier than others. Dream wishes, fiercely, that he could hate Ranboo.

It would be so much easier. 

“It’s weird,” Ranboo says, because apparently Dream had been too silent for too long. He watches his brother reach out, claws lightly scraping against the wood of Dream’s mask in a way he would never let anyone else do. “I think it looks scary, when I don’t know you. I don’t like that.” 

“It’s necessary,” he replies. Tries to say it nonchalantly, firmly. Tries to say it with a lie, even though the words are true. 

He can taste something like bile. Recalls the day he first put on the mask; Ranboo, messily crying the way little kids do. Ranboo, who hiccuped and giggled and loved the mask for what it let them do, for how it eased things. Little endermen don’t do well with eye contact. 

It’s good that Ranboo fears it when he doesn’t know him. It’s good. It means it’s working, means that Ranboo truly doesn’t know who Dream is when Dream makes it so. 

It’s _good_. 

“Please let me help,” Ranboo repeats, and Dream watches his little brother and tries to _hate_. Something that will never happen, not from him, and it makes that burning feeling within ignite once more. 

“Fine,” he says, softens his voice, “But I want your book.”

Red and green blinks down at him. 

“My book?”

“The one you write memories in,” Dream confirms, and catches Ranboo’s hands in his. Gives them a squeeze, ignores the pinpricks of claws. “I want that. And then I will let you help.”

His little brother grins; it’s wide and toothy, delighted and confused but willing. Eager to prove himself, to be a good little brother. 

Dream smiles back. The mask hides how it trembles. 

If he can’t do it himself, he will just have to make Ranboo hate him instead. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is an incredibly self-indulgent attempt to share my (no doubt never to happen) headcanon that Ranboo is actually Dream's little brother. 
> 
> That's about it! Thank you for reading <3


End file.
